Vatican worried by impasse in Israel-Palestine talks, envoy tells UN

April 22, 2015

“The Holy See is deeply concerned at the total lack of progress of the negotiations between Palestine and Israel,” the Vatican’s representative told a meeting of the UN Security Council on April 21.

Archbishop Bernardito Auza called attention to several trouble spots in the Middle East, but concentrated on the Israel-Palestine conflict, in the course of his address. He urged a resolution of the long impasse that has blocked the election of a new president in Lebanon, and decried the “breathtaking levels of savagery” in Syria’s civil war.

The archbishop also reminded UN delegates that 65 countries have signed a statement in support of the religious rights of Christians and other minority religious communities in the Middle East, and noting with alarm the vanishing Christian presence in the region.

Regarding the Israel-Palestine problem, the Vatican representative said that “Israel has genuine and legitimate concerns for its security; however, such security will come not in isolation from its neighbors, but in being a part of them through a negotiated peace with the Palestinians through the implementation of the ‘Two-State Solution,’ which has the support of the Holy See and of the international community in general.”

 

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Further information:

• Intervention of H.E. Archbishop Bernardito Auza (Holy See Mission)